Schools' new statement on the Inquiry

Discussion of the children's schools in the UK.
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Keir
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Postby Keir » Fri Feb 24, 2006 12:25 am

Ah memories,

German Officer : What is your name?
Captured Tommy: Don't tell im Spike!

They don't make em like they used to!!

Goblinboy
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Postby Goblinboy » Fri Feb 24, 2006 12:51 am

whitedevil wrote:Since when do you know my name!


Pay attention mate! ;-) Since you and Sam told the board. You've dropped it in your email address in an early posting, and Sam named you in another thread recently. If you're uncomfortable about being named, no problems with editing it out.

nilsabm
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Postby nilsabm » Fri Feb 24, 2006 12:52 am

Not MI5 material then you reckon?

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Keir
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Postby Keir » Fri Feb 24, 2006 1:16 am

I dunno, the cold war ain't what it used to be.

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Stanton
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Postby Stanton » Fri Feb 24, 2006 11:50 am

Certainly, Whitedevil, 'testosterone-fuelled' was aimed at you! You'd be a strange 18-year-old if it wasn't roaring around. I'm quite relaxed about 'empathy' issues, etc. Can't expect you to be over-sympathetic to the elderly, i.e., over thirty, at your age. But I would like Bella's voice to be heard and if you and your friends hog all the space?

whitedevil
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Postby whitedevil » Fri Feb 24, 2006 4:29 pm

Stanton,

1. I'm not eighteen

2. I have no intention of shouting anyone down.

Cheers, WD
freedom wears your scars of desire

Zathura
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Postby Zathura » Fri Feb 24, 2006 5:23 pm

I'm sorry to repeat this post but it is far far more appropriate on this thread. Sorry once again.


Having new governors won't destroy the school. And for the teachers, the real one's people are angryabout, for these to apologise is not only basic good sense,it is essential in making a genuine answer I think to the demands of the complainants. But even from a PR point of view for this apology to be missing the School risks more chance of being undermined than if the apologies are made.

The school won't be brought down in my opinion. It is too officially wedged into the secular and normal systems of inspection etc. So don't worry.

However for the lesser offenders to make heartfelt apologies and for nothing to come from DL CR and ND.

Well that smacks of legal protection.

The fact is certain lies have been perpetrated in my opinion in and around the report.

IT IS VERY UNLIKELY A TEACHER THREW A BOARD RUBBER ONCE.

this seems to me to be a lie.

I can dimly remember this sort of thing happenning every now and then. Not systematic abuse but far more times than once.


I also think it unlikely that ND cained on the bare butt once. What was his reason for doing this? This one time. Also why would quite a few people remember being cained on the bare behind. I don't know how many.

This surely is a legal protection lie and unfortunately I certainly don't think it 's THE TRUTH. Ironically

Now for there to be only this kind of self belief by the governors that only one board rubber was thrown and only one bare bottom caining. This strikes me as unlikely.

So it is unsuprising that the 'activists' are not believing the report not digging the Schools use of 'the report' as 'fact' and most of all are not digging the absense of an apology from ND, DL and CR.


The school is hiding. I BELIEVE THAT if at least an apology was given by these three individuals it would make a difference. Even if it is only a lip service. Better still if the true emotions of the most accused teachers are brought to bare and opened up just a little in this apology. It sounds like at least on some days they are sorry. why not say so openly.

Given the fact that St Jamers changed quite drastically over the years, the teachers themselves must feel some regret at earlier versions that they themselves changed. If you beat a lot of kids for 8 years then decided that wasn't the best education and gave the next 15 or so years of kids a different education that I assume was considered an improvement say sorry to those kids you repeatedly told the modern world was corrupt, who you repeatedly intimidated and occassionally were too violent towards. Say sorry for getting it wrong in the first ten years. For 50, a quarter, of the first 5 classes to be complaining and others to not have been reached for the inquiry, these are NOT negligable odds. For the first ten years St James was NOT wholly a good school in any shape or form. The ideas were ridged, the food was bad (and people were expelled for smoking spliff and made to look like the worst kind of criminals.) O.K spliff was illegal. But music, clothes, haircuts, private time, personal opinions and the space to not feel like you were going to be physically set upon if you spoke out of line. (some people are claiming this and I remember the less law abiding people in my class were hit far far more often.) For the older classes it probably was nearer 'brutal' yet I still don't believe it was quite this bad) The encouragement of healthy relationships with girls instead of ABSURD ABSURD ABSURD school rules against it. THESE ARE NOT ILLEGAL LUXURIES. THESE ARE BASIC HUMAN FREEDOMS THAT YOU DENIED THE KIDS EVEN IN MY TIME.

If St James is now liberal about music, clothes, punishments has decent food, does not punish boys for meeting girls and vice versa, does not encourage parents to supervise all boy girl activities. Is sex still punishable if it comes to a teacher's attention with expulsion. Sure teach a healthy sex education but if you actually ACTIVELY do your best to supress it it will rear it's beautiful head up in the most irregular ways and create unatural tensions in ALMOST ALL St James kids and leavers. YOU GOT IT AND STILL GET IT WRONG ST JAMES. (in my opinion) YOU GO TOO MUCH THE OTHER WAY!!

If JAZZ POP as well as CLASSICAL is taught. If all PHILOSOPHY is taught. If boys are allowed to wear ear rings, grow there hair long, have sideburns etc. And girls allowed to wear short skirts and wear fancy make up etc. IF ALL THESE THINGS HAVE CHANGED THEN ST JAMES HAS CHANGED.

If none of these things have changed then ST JAMES is still the suppressed load of bollocks it was in my day.

These are normal freedoms all the other kids have been given. Other kids don't even realise these are freedoms. They take all the above for granted.

Does St James help gay persons come to terms with their sexuality.

NOW THESE ARE ALL THE BASIC CHANGES THAT PERSONS ON THIS SITE WOULD BE VERY HAPPY ABOUT IF ALL THESE THINGS HAD BEEN RIGHTED.

BUT THEY HAVEN'T HAVE THEY?

WOMEN ARE STILL THOUGHT OF AND TAUGHT TO BE DEPENDENT ON MEN EVEN THOUGH THEY GET THE GOOD MARKS.

Why do they get the good marks probably out of overidentification by the institution with the idea that women mature quicker than men. This idea is so strong in the S.E.S that it has produced this appalling disparity in academic prowess between boys and girls to such an extreme degree. I bet there is no other school in the country that could boast such an imbalanced male female dynamic. Maybe it is general I don't know.

But the fact is on Music, ideas about women, individual expression concerning apparel and hairdos and skirts and the assembly after assembly of partisan TRUTH lectures. THESE ACTUALLY HAVEN'T CHANGED.

Apart from the abuse this is what everyone is complaining about. CHANGE OR DON'T CHANGE. Don't pretend to change.

And apologise for the mistreatment

This is all so bloody obvious

Alban
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Postby Alban » Fri Feb 24, 2006 5:46 pm

Abso-bloody-lutely Zathura!

What sort of example are the governors (and their minions) setting to the children they teach. Some call it spin, but that is just a kind way of saying lies!

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Stanton
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Postby Stanton » Fri Feb 24, 2006 5:52 pm

Sorry whitedevil, my mistake

Zathura
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Postby Zathura » Fri Feb 24, 2006 5:55 pm

deletio
Last edited by Zathura on Fri Feb 24, 2006 6:33 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Zathura
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Postby Zathura » Fri Feb 24, 2006 5:55 pm

Hey Alban...I feel bad I always am so full of it that I never have time to reply to your thoughtful debates back to me. I'd like to. Can you give me some time to collate a response. You often have a point to equal or better my point and sometimes I feel you are wrong. But you seem to have a good vibe and are one of the ones wanting this genuine apology. I don't want it myself. That is for the mistreated. But what I do want is social change of rather a fundemental sort. (women, gays, music etc) I feel really really strongly about these things. And I don't expect an apology for their absense because 'I think' that the ideasbeing disseminated ARE still backward in my opinion and in the opinion of 75% to 95% of Western society depending on the issue.

leon
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Postby leon » Fri Feb 24, 2006 6:27 pm

bella wrote:Correct. If I was to send my boy to an SOP school, it would be precisely because of the doctrine it espouses.

As someone said previously, I don't quite understand why St James doesn't make its philosophical/religious bases more transparent - plenty of independent schools do, and suffer no ill effects.


The Waldorf schools do and have had problemns in some european contries.

Your not going to exactly draw the crowds in by advertising that you believe all disabled people are thus afflicted as a punishment for sins in a past life. It's better to lure them in gradually, get them ensnared on the "social' aspect of group membership, feelings of belonging, specialness, being part of something meaningful etc, and gradually drip feed whatever material you want later when resistance and truly independent thought is compromised by newly aquired emotional commitments.

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bella
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Postby bella » Sun Feb 26, 2006 12:49 am

Leon, I suspect the motivation isn't quite so sinister, but there does seem to be a certain reluctance to "scare people off". Less so these days, though - it seems there is less of an inclination to be apologetic for the teaching - but as you say, hearing a spiel on sanskara and birth defects at an introductory meeting would be about as palatable as listening to a sermon on mortal sin, fire and brimstone at an intro meeting for a Catholic school. Instead, you're made aware that the school follows a Catholic ethos, and you make up your own mind, asking questions or researching as necessary. Being made aware that the school follows an ethos expoused by the SES (in no uncertain terms) would be sufficient, to my mind - accompanied by a willingness to talk about what is obviously a much more obscure ethos than Catholicism.

After hearing a few of the tales of "discipline", most recently and notably Melba's at the Melbourne adult school, I'm left wondering why you'd want people to stick around out of compulsion or ignorance. It seems that people should (and would) either come to it willingly over time, or leave - being "punished" for not abiding by something you don't agree with (if you did agree, you'd presumably abide) doesn't appear very productive. Being from an apparently "progressive" adult school environment, this certainly seems to be the case - people keep attending until they come up against something that's a deal-breaker for them. Some people never come across a deal-breaker.

Stating the obvious, maybe, but I guess there are varying levels of complexity in people's motivation regarding maintaining membership at the schools. I do recall our school leader saying at one point, regarding Part 1 students and other interested parties, that basically questions were to be answered honestly and simply, and they could (to paraphrase) "take it or leave it". From the more recent accounts of life at St James, it seems this is perhaps an increasingly common viewpoint, albeit not common enough.

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Keir
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Postby Keir » Sun Feb 26, 2006 10:20 am

Hi Bella,

You say

Being made aware that the school follows an ethos expoused by the SES (in no uncertain terms) would be sufficient, to my mind - accompanied by a willingness to talk about what is obviously a much more obscure ethos than Catholicism.


I wonder how many questions would be debated properly if they were uncomfortable to the school. My suspicion borne of experience is that if they dont want to answer something they will use all the tricks in the book to avoid it.

Secondly, how would a parent know to ask the governors about their stance on the laws of Manu re the teaching plan in the girls school if they hadn't read about it first on this site.

You could argue that a caring parent would get to know all this stuff before sending their child to a school, but we all know that the reality is often that you don't expect to have to Google a school to get information that the interview with the head might not give you. You would have to be given a reason to distrust the felicity of what was said.

As many have said, without joining up and spending a considerable amount of time in the SES you would have little comprehension of what the SES influence on ST J might be, as well as how those beliefs can be spun to make them sound innocent to a member of the press, or a police investigations team, or a school inspector or anyone in fact that doesn't know the reality from experience.

Real transparency is having nothing to hide. If you felt that your daughter would be being influenced in school to be compliant and subservient to men, would you be champing at the bit to defend your right to send her there? I suspect not as you seem to be a champion of independent thought.

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Stanton
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Postby Stanton » Sun Feb 26, 2006 11:13 am

This is a tricky one. Assuming, for the moment, that the SES has a right to exist and to teach what it does, and assuming that it also has a right (as it does) to start schools for children, then the question is one of transparency for parents. I would agree with Bella, she's put it very well. There is another question which has been alluded to, not much discussed, but which sits at the heart of any free country: you may heartily disagree with something (a political view, a method of teaching, EU regulations on bananas, whatever) but that is no reason for seeking to ban it. Quite the opposite.


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